Quote:
Originally Posted by charles maynes  Well that isn't really a post production sound issue...
but from my experience an amplifier which has "Balanced" inputs will usually have XLR jacks, and perhaps TRS input jacks.... |
You can also have an unbalanced unit with XLR +4 dBu I/O. But yes, if you see three conductors (XLR or TRS - Tip, Ring, Sleeve) it usually is balanced. Basically you have an inverting and non inverting line to reject common mode noise. To try to simplify it conceptually, add an extra line to the normal hot and cold, and reverse the polarity on that third line so that any noise picked up along the line during transmission is "out of phase" (more accurately reversed polarity) when the signal gets put back at the receiving end, and the noise gets cancelled.